The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Power of Meow (The Dalai Lama's Cat 3)

At 7:00 P.M. the following Friday night I was in pride of place on the top shelf of the magazine rack in the Himalaya Book Café, which had been arranged cabaret-style, with the piano near the reception counter. Tea lights in decorative colored-glass holders flickered on the tables, lending the room an intimate atmosphere. Almost all the people there were locals, friends of Franc’s, café regulars, or people who had been invited especially for . . . no one knew exactly what.

At one table sat Sid, immaculate in a white, Nehru-collared shirt, chatting with Mrs. Trinci and her good friend Dorothy Cartright. Serena busied herself in the front of the house. Ludo and at least a half dozen students from the Downward Dog School of Yoga occupied several of the tables—including Merrilee, dressed in flamboyant crimson and quaffing copious quantities of champagne. Several members of His Holiness’s staff were present. Tenzin and his wife, Susan, a classically trained violinist, were engaged in an animated conversation with Oliver, His Holiness’s new translator. For the first time ever, His Holiness had hired a Western translator. Oliver had been born in England but fully ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk fifteen years before; apart from being able to switch effortlessly between Tibetan and English, he was also fluent in a half dozen other languages.

Franc arrived shortly after seven wearing a fawn-colored jacket, an emerald-green cravat, and the broadest of smiles. As soon as Ewing arrived, looking dapper in a dinner jacket and bow tie, Franc wasted no time in escorting him around the room. As a longtime McLeod Ganj resident, Ewing already knew many of those present, and there was a tide of good feeling as they circulated. They didn’t skip greeting its most highly placed occupant.

Reaching the magazine rack, Franc gestured toward where I was sitting, paws tucked neatly beneath me. “And this is Rinpoche,” he said, using the name by which I was best known at the café, a word Tibetan Buddhists give their beloved lamas, meaning “precious.”

“Or Swami, as she is known at the Downward Dog School of Yoga!” Ewing brought his palms together and bowed. “We’re already well acquainted.”

A short while later, Franc announced the start of that evening’s proceedings through a microphone.

“It’s curious how different people come into our lives at different times . . . ,” he began. “Although many of you have been friends with Ewing for years, I met him only recently. And I discovered that, in addition to being the most wonderful pianist, he can also sing.”

There were whoops of encouragement from Ewing’s fellow yoga students, for whom this was also, evidently, fresh information.

“Ewing used to be a prompter. I’d never heard of a prompter before, but his job was to follow every note of an opera or musical and to step in if a singer forgot his or her lines.”

“Whenever a singer forgot his or her lines,” Ewing observed drolly, causing a burst of laughter.

“Prompters must have great voices and tremendous range. Ewing, who has lived so long in the world of music, has reconnected me to something that was the most important part of my life when I was growing up,” Franc said with feeling. “And for that I am truly grateful. And so it is my privilege to invite to our inaugural soiree Mr. Ewing Klipspringer.”

Ewing, already seated at the piano, played the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, to general amusement.

“I feel sure he has some wonderful things in store for us.”

I don’t know what word I can use to describe the music that evening, dear reader, except for “enchanting.” None of us who had come had any idea what to expect, but from the moment Ewing began singing Bononcini’s aria “Per la gloria d’adorarvi,” it became clear that this would be a night to remember.

The gathered at that night’s soiree were fulsome with their applause, and as the wine flowed and the evening unfolded, their appreciation grew all the more. After a number of songs there was an instrumental interlude during which Ewing treated the audience to everything from Chopin to Count Basie. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he announced that Tenzin’s wife, Susan, would perform Massenet’s “Meditation” from Thaïs.

Most of us saw Susan only rarely—and we only realized her exquisite talent as she performed that achingly beautiful piece. Petite and slender, as she stood in front of us all it seemed almost as though she and her violin came together; she drew us listeners into the music with her. For a few moments we became the music and were as one with the timeless experience, as if in a state of deep meditative absorption.

Was it a coincidence that Geshe Wangpo decided to take a nighttime stroll that evening, only to walk past the café at the very moment that the night’s proceedings approached their finale? He slipped in through a side door, and a chair was quickl

y made available to him by one of the Namgyal contingent. He followed the concert with interest.

After Susan’s mesmerizing performance, Ewing sang several more songs. Then he asked impishly if, before the evening came to a close, they’d like to hear Franc play something? The answer to that question was a foregone conclusion, the mood in the room having built to one of rapturous enthusiasm.

I couldn’t forget the sight of Franc sitting at that same piano only weeks earlier, harshly criticizing himself for being “a hopeless musician.” How his self-loathing had made him deaf to the genuine enthusiasm of all those around him! He had placed limitations on his own happiness by convincing himself he wasn’t good enough to follow his passion.

Right now, however, it was a different story. Franc sat down at the piano and placed sheet music on the stand. Ewing acted as page-turner. First he turned out a flawless performance of Mendelssohn’s dainty “Spring Song,” which won him the rapturous applause of his audience. Encouraged by this, he then played Brahms’s Hungarian Dance no. 3 with magnificent Central European aplomb—a triumph that won him a standing ovation.

The crowd thundered with approval as Ewing shook Franc’s hand in warm congratulation. There were enthusiastic chants of “Encore! Encore!”

As he turned toward the candlelit audience, Franc saw the faces of so many customers who had long since become friends, those he had lived among for all this time and who had never had so much as an inkling about his hidden talent. Then, for the first time that evening, Franc caught sight of his teacher.

His eyes filled with tears.

Holding up his hand for quiet, he spoke with a soft but compelling voice when the lull quickly descended. “You know, I’ve been wanting to have a soiree here ever since I first came to Dharamsala. From the beginning, staging musical evenings was a dream of mine. But only that, a dream, for the simple reason that I never thought I was good enough.”

There was a collective gasp of surprise, followed by a palpable wave of sympathy as Franc brushed a tear away from his cheek.

“There is one man who made this evening possible and I didn’t invite him because I didn’t think this was the kind of thing he would attend. But it turns out he came anyway.”

People turned to see Geshe-la gazing at Franc with a look of supreme benevolence.

“It is Geshe Wangpo who taught me the importance of self-acceptance. That we can allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. Which is why I want to thank you, Geshe-la, from the bottom of my heart.” Emotion tugged at Franc’s mouth as he brought his palms together at his heart. “You made it possible for me to feel the joy of playing music again.”

The audience applauded warmly, but this time the energy was of a different quality. It was not the exuberant excitement of before, but rather a wave of profound gratitude, a deeply felt communal embrace.